The art of salvation: Kirsten’s creative life and Christian call

Much like her hipster friends and fellow art majors, Kirsten Aho relied on Salvation Army stores for hand-me-downs: clothes, college furniture and craft supplies. But as a 23-year-old soldier in the Salvation Army, she has a much deeper, lifelong connection to the international church and charity organization.

kiri A graduate of Grinnell, a liberal liberal-arts college in central Iowa, Kirsten now works as a youth minister at a Salvation Army homeless shelter in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.

With the mix of ethnicities and classes that go in and out of the center, Kirsten keeps aware of the big concepts –like multiculturalism, contemporary Christian service, the effects of the recession—even though her job has her doing seemingly silly things: planning talent shows, playing PG-rated movies, orchestrating art projects.

Her experience over six months there has further highlighted her call to train to become a fulltime officer in the Salvation Army, just like her parents.

Fewer second-generation Salvationists are sticking with the church, sometimes known for its classic brass-band music and dated uniforms, and even far fewer will enlist as officers, said Major George Hood, national spokesmen for the Salvation Army, headquartered in Washington D.C. In 2008, the Salvation Army had around 3,600 officers, a third fewer than five years before.

Despite the dowdy reputation that may be keeping the younger demographic away, Kirsten doesn’t seem stuck in the past, like some marching, singing extra in “Guys and Dolls.”

She approaches ministry like she approaches the contemporary art, a chance to bring meaning to life through individual experience rather than a single assigned message.

“I would like to think that life is art, as cliché as that is,” said Kirsten, who punctuates most sentences with a distinct, giggly laugh and creates mostly interactive art pieces—masks, puppets, hats, stuffed animals.

At the same time, she said, her life is a vehicle for expressing devotion to God. Unlike other evangelical movements, the Salvation Army church does not administer sacraments (like baptism or communion). Instead, “your whole life is supposed to be a sacrament,” she said.

Growing up, Kirsten and her three siblings moved across the Midwest as their parents served in inner-city missions in Chicago, Detroit and Omaha. The Ahos were at church four or five nights a week, and at home, they followed the church’s rules. Among them: no drinking, no smoking.

Recently, over dinner in her sister’s apartment just north of Chicago, Kirsten and Natalya Aho recall stuffing Thanksgiving baskets, setting tables and teaching Sunday School alongside their preaching parents.

“I always worked in the nursery,” said Natalya, 27, who teaches preschool at Reba Early Learning Center in Evanston.

Unlike Kirsten, she’s longer a Salvationist, but still considers herself a Christian—in a more globally conscious way that emphasizes care of the earth over individual purity and piety.

“Heaven just seems so far away to me, and I don’t even know if heaven exists or not, and I don’t care,” said Natalya while her 5-year-old, curly-haired son Zane tugged at her side. “Right now, the earth is all we have.”

Kirsten remembers praying several years ago for her older siblings who had left the Salvation Army lifestyle. She cried during a prayer group—a sign of a connection with God and perhaps an answered prayer, she said. Natalya returned to Christianity in her own way, and Kirsten’s older brother John, now works as a youth minister in Bend, Ore.

It’s the same emotional pull that had her crying three years ago at a Salvation Army commissioning, where she said she got her call to serve.

In Natalya’s Evanston apartment, a swirly blue, green and red painting hangs over the couch, a piece of Kirsten’s artwork inspired by racial tension in Detroit, where she went to high school.

Concerns over race and ethnicity also inform a modern Salvation Army mission in an increasingly multicultural America for Kirsten, who herself remains especially aware of her Japanese and Finnish roots.

“Hopefully I’ll live my life (in the church) in a way that is artful and that makes me happy,” said Kirsten, who’ll start her training here in Chicago next fall. “As far as doing art, it’ll just depend on the amount of time that I have, which—according to my parents—is like none.”

Pictures of Kirsten’s most recent collection, displayed at Grinnell last fall, can be found on her blog, Impotent Animals.